The Most Underrated Philip K. Dick Adaptation Deserves To Be Seen

"For a man so resigned to having his personality, anecdotes, and attire focus group-tested for mass appeal, here's a stranger who instinctively understands exactly who he is, and can call him out when he's pretending to be someone he's not. Their meet-cute is short-lived, yet indelible."

"Sweeping romances aren't really one of sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick's pet concerns. Instead, the author's short stories and novels deal heavily in conspiracies, the concept of reality as nothing more than an elaborate illusion, surveillance, a pervasive sense of paranoia, and a lone individual who finds himself pitted against a powerful corporation."

"Instead, they make minor-yet-strategic tweaks to people's lives - a spilled cup of coffee here, a lagging internet connection there - to ensure everyone is exactly where they need to be at all times, humanity stays on course and any 'ripples' are avoided. Errant individuals get reset, their memories and personalities erased."

The Adjustment Bureau, a 2011 film loosely adapted from Philip K. Dick's 1954 short story, follows a charismatic politician and ballet dancer who share an immediate, profound connection. Unlike Dick's typical focus on conspiracies and reality manipulation, this film centers on romance threatened by an organization that controls human destiny through subtle interventions. The bureau makes strategic adjustments to people's lives—spilled coffee, internet delays—to keep humanity on course and prevent ripples in their predetermined plan. When individuals deviate from this plan, they face memory and personality erasure. The film transforms Dick's themes of paranoia and corporate control into a tragedy about two people fighting against forces determined to keep them apart.

Read at Inverse